Something’s brewing

I have been so busy writing thought pieces that I haven’t had the opportunity to discuss what’s been going on in my neck of the woods. Life seems to be spiraling out of control on my end as I am approaching graduation, looking for jobs, and most importantly, working on my capstone project.

If you are unfamiliar what a “capstone” is, I will give you the skinny. Basically, this is the final project that caps off my college career. It is a single media project that demonstrates my skills as an electronic media student. If I fail this, I don’t graduate.

My passion for video lies in documentary production. I love using my creativity to tell stories, particularly biographies or entertainment pieces. So, naturally I have opted to create a mini-documentary. Choosing a topic almost killed me as I spent a month overthinking every possibility and eventually said, “it’ll come to me.” Well, it did come to me and I settled on making a creative documentary on the topic of craft beer and the culture that surrounds it. I could drink great beer and learn a thing or two… wasn’t a hard sell.

I have been spending the last three weeks shooting and documenting the passions of brewers and breweries in Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. I have truly gotten to use every bit of my soul in the production of this piece.

The pressure and gratitude swung into full force when one of the breweries I am working with sprung the idea to host a Q&A and screening of my documentary once the product was complete. I couldn’t say no to the opportunity, but naturally I am nervous as h*ll.

I have been allowing myself to feel every bit of emotion that comes with a project this large. I have been telling myself how proud I am of my careful attention to detail and creativity. My emotions have been all over the place; I can honestly say I am very mentally exhausted. The need to complete something to say and show what I know I can do… is what is keeping me going.

There’s not much I can say about the stress I am under, but I know this is my last chance to show UW-Whitewater, my soon-to-be Alma Mater, exactly how awesome the communications program is.

Wish me luck!